by Bill West
First published 2016
The men of Beech Ridge return each fall to their weathered hunting camps scattered through the Vermont mountains. Jake Morrison has been making this pilgrimage for twenty years, following trails his father walked before him. But this season brings changes that threaten the traditions these hunters have preserved for generations. New development creeps up the valley. Young men leave for cities and never return. The old-timers who built these camps with their own hands grow fewer each year. As Jake walks familiar ridges with his rifle and watches for deer sign in the frost, he wrestles with what it means to hold onto a way of life that the world beyond these hills no longer values. The hunting camps become more than shelter from November storms. They become the last refuge for stories that bind fathers to sons and neighbors to the land they have always known.
Genres: literary-fiction, family-life, american-fiction, 20th-century, adventure, 21st-century
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, nostalgia
Setting: Beech Ridge, Vermont
Period: Fall
158 pages · Paperback · CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform